


The Spaces Between

by hubrisandwax



Series: Love and Want [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubrisandwax/pseuds/hubrisandwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The length of time you've wanted him is a mere moment in the space of your long existence. A beat, a blink, a breath.</i>
</p><p>  <i>Yet you know you want him like you know every verse of the Bible and that Tuesday afternoon in Heaven and the names of the prophets and sound the wind makes as it sighs across the earth and every scar, every blemish, every infinitesimal section of his body.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spaces Between

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a Tumblr fic prompt collection I've been completing with friends! This week was 'Space'.
> 
> Also the final part in the two-part Love and Want series, this time from Cas's perspective.

The length of time you've wanted him is a mere moment in the space of your long existence. A beat, a blink, a breath.

Yet you know you want him like you know every verse of the Bible and that Tuesday afternoon in Heaven and the names of the prophets and sound the wind makes as it sighs across the earth and every scar, every blemish, every infinitesimal section of his body.

It has taken you a long time to understand your feelings. Too long, you think. You’ve felt love for other humans, but never want. It was new and overwhelming and often too much. It drove you to sacrifice yourself countless times and rebel against heaven and swallow thousands of souls. It is like a slow burn, a dull ache - a candle that can’t be blown out smoldering underneath your ribcage.

But you are a wave of celestial intent; he is the righteous man.

You've existed for millennia, and nothing has affected you the way he has. You've met kings and queens, geniuses and inventors, gods and goddesses. You've raised entire cities and healed blind children and watched the beginnings of humanity flop to shore. Your true form is the size of the Chrysler building, and you could break his bones as easily as snapping twigs. You pulled him from hell and could throw him back in a heartbeat. 

Yet here you are, coveting the body and mind of the man you stitched together from earth and dust and grace.

He taught you how to want. Prior to his existence, you understood what others wanted. What Michael wanted, what God wanted, what the angels wanted. You understood aims, objectives. Not what you wanted for yourself. He taught you free will - he taught you desire. How to want for yourself. And now you want not just him, but things beyond - freedom and contentment and safety for humanity. You want to atone for your sins. You want to be a better individual (Angel? Person? Human? What are you, now?)

You know he loves you, in whatever capacity, but sometimes love isn’t enough. You’ve abused each other’s affection and trust and good intentions, and now where do you stand? Your relationship is battered and bruised and damaged, just as both of you are. How can you heal? Two fingers cannot be applied so easily this time. Emotional hurt, you are learning, is so much more different to physical.

Nor do you know how to communicate your feelings. Humans make it look so easy; tell the other person you love them, or kiss them, or touch them. Perform an intimate action, state specific words. You know these things, but you are unsure how to apply them. Will he push you away, like he has in so many other instances? Or will he accept you in to the warm fold of his arms? He has shown you more love, more adoration, than you have been given your entire life, and you’re hungry for it, but you don’t know how to ask for it. So you wait. Whether you’re waiting for him or for yourself, you’re unsure, but you’ll continue to stand too close to him and watch him sleep and trace the constellations of freckles across his nose and cheeks with your eyes.

The spaces between his fingers, his heartbeats, his breaths, deserve to be filled by another’s. You want to occupy these spaces. You want to occupy his mind and his body and his life; of this you can be sure.

But first you have to find yourself. Who are you, really? Are you Jimmy Novak or Emmanuel or Castiel, Angel of the Lord? Are you human or immortal? How many of your thoughts are you own? How much of your life is you own? What is true and what is false and how can you be certain of these things? What is your purpose, now? He provides you with one, but it is transient. Everything is transient, as you are learning. Here’s to entropy; time makes eventual martyrs of us all.

It happens one night after you’ve both almost lost your lives. The hunt was dangerous; you were ill prepared, and it made you realize how fragile he is. You both push through the motel room door, grinning at each other, high on adrenaline. Sam has taken the impala to get food.

Somehow, the laughter between you dies and is replaced with something far more intense. He looks across at you, green eyes burning with something you cannot discern, emotion flickering across his face. You open your mouth, words fighting their way between your teeth and over your tongue - I’m so sorry I want you I need you I fucking love you – but they don’t make it before he’s grasped your lapels and is pulling you towards him. His lips fold over yours, warm and wet and insistent, and you exhale sharply in surprise. Suddenly your brain kicks in and you know this so you back him up against the door and he moans beneath you and you fumble against him, trying to work everything out. It is messy and awkward but goddamn glorious and the best thing you’ve ever experienced. And it’s yours. Your moment. Your choice. You chose free will and humanity and Dean Winchester.

You know it won’t be easy – that’s just who you both are. But he allows you to feel, to want, a flood of sense and emotion and sentiment. You are learning about yourself. It is true; Castiel, Angel of the Lord, was lost the moment he pulled the righteous man from perdition. Instead a far more competent individual has taken his place, one that it weak to all the tragedies of the human condition. You wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ve found your space on Earth, a separate entity to Heaven and Hell and Dean Winchester. Instead you are Castiel, no title attached. You are your own person.

**Author's Note:**

> Also inspired by the song Holdin' On by Citizen Cope.


End file.
